You say potato ... I say what?

I recently got the following email from Josh, my nephew: “During my century yesterday I ate lots
of boiled potatoes and eggs dipped in salt, my favorite!”

So, my mind immediately began to race with questions: Did Josh carry these
potatoes and hard-boiled eggs in two of his back bike-jersey pockets, with a salt shaker in the
third? If you put an unboiled egg in your bike-jersey pocket, after 60 miles on a hot day, would it
be boiled?

It also got me thinking about all the unusual snacks people crave when they ride. So, I asked
around...

Here’s what I heard from Bruce: “My brother used to wrap an insulated container of ice cream in
a down sleeping bag, placed in a stuff bag. That is enough to do this trick. After several hours on
the road the party would arrive at the campsite. ‘Anyone for ice cream?’ he would ask. ‘Yeah,
right,’ was the usual response. Then jaws would drop as he produced bowls of frozen ice cream
without the benefit of a freezer.”

If the same thing would work with a few beers, than this just might be the best bike
ride/campsite cookout ever!

Karl also likes frozen treats, as in frozen grapes. He freezes them in advance and swears that
20 miles in they’re still pretty frozen. And very refreshing. “I also like Atomic Fireballs as a
quick pick me up during a ride. Nice balance of heat and sugar,” Karl added. And there is
indeed a jar of them by his desk.

Lisa loves rice balls. And says they go well with PB&J during ultra races (which are races
of 12 or 24 hours, or longer). “The crew left a bunch of them for me and the gal I was riding with
at the turnaround at Sebring (a Florida race) and the ladies there thought they must be some magic
rice balls. Not. I just need some solid food that I can bite into, and get tired of sweets … Made
them the night before in my hotel room. Cooked a full rice maker batch. Bowl of salty water. Dip
hands in salt water, shape handful-sized balls, wrap individually in plastic wrap. Good for about
48 hours. There are variations, adding a little surprise in the middle, furukaki, stuff like that,
but I just go with the basic ones.”

Lisa may be onto something here, but one question: what the heck is furukaki?

Mike never leaves home without a tube of honey, locally sourced, of course, Fig newtons and
Hammer gel. “I have also eaten Oreo cookies, HoHos, Payday candy bars, hot dogs, and once a tuna
fish sandwich on the bike.”

I’m down with the Paydays. They’re salty, nutty, satisfying. Not so much with the tuna sandwich.
All that mayo baking out in the sun, in my back pocket and absorbing my body heat, is a recipe for
disaster.

BTW: It turns out that Josh’s boiled egg and potato treats were at the rest stops, spoiling my
mental pictures of him toting half a dozen eggs up a mountain.

If anyone else has some strange snacks, email them to me (swartenberg@dispatch.com), and I’ll put together a
second post.